Monday, August 11, 2014

Marie Harf briefs on Iraq today

2:09 p.m. EDTMS. HARF: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the briefing and sorry for
the delay today. A couple items at the top and then, Lara, I will turn
it over to you. I will also endeavor to have your name spelled right in
the transcript this week.QUESTION: I’ve been called worse.MS. HARF: I know. Okay. So first, just a
quick Iraq update. As you know, over the weekend the U.S. military
undertook several more humanitarian air drops. That brings the total to
four. They also undertook a number of kinetic action against ISIL
targets. Just a planning note, at 2:30 today, Lieutenant General Bill
Mayville of the J-3 staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be doing an
operational briefing. You can watch it online at defense.gov. It’s not
anything new. It’s to go over both on the humanitarian side and the
operational side, more of the details on some of what they’ve been
doing. So if folks are interested in that, I just wanted to make sure
people knew about that. I’m guessing I’ll still be briefing at 2:30, but
here’s to hoping.
In terms of the political side of Iraq, as you saw today, there’s
been a new prime minister-designate nominated. The Vice President, Vice
President Biden, has spoken with the Iraqi Prime Minister-designate
Haider al-Abadi. He’s also spoken with the Iraqi president as well.
We’ve congratulated Dr. Abadi on his nomination to form a new government
and to develop a national program pursuant to Iraq’s constitutional
process. There is a process that we’ve all talked about a lot. This is
the latest step in it and one that we welcome.
And with that, Lara, kick us off. Actually, wait – I have one more
quick thing at the top. Sorry about that. I got ahead of myself.On Iran, on behalf of the U.S. Government, we wish
to extend our sincere condolences to the family and friends of those
who lost their lives on a Sepahan air flight, which crashed shortly
after takeoff outside of Tehran, Iran yesterday. There are no reports of
any U.S. citizens on the flight. We are aware of reports that Iranian
authorities are investigating the crash, and again wanted to extend our
since condolences as well.
Also on Iran, on a happier note, we want to welcome the Iranian men’s
national volleyball team to the U.S. to wish them well on their series
of friendly matches against the U.S. national team. The Iranian team
arrived in the U.S. late last week. They’ve already played one in a
series of four matches against the U.S. team. On Saturday night, the
teams played to a full crowd at the Galen Center on the campus of the
University of Southern California. The match was close, but the U.S.
team won three games to one. The remaining matches will take place on
the 13th, 15th, and 16th of August all in southern California. They’re
being broadcast live into Iran via Voice of America’s Persian Service.
They’re also available livestream on the VOA Persian website and the
Team USA site. We’ve talked a lot in this room about sports diplomacy
and how important we think it is, and this is just another example of
that.
Lara, now you can kick us off.QUESTION: Thank you. So I’d like to go back to kind of getting in the weeds of Iraqi politics and the constitutional process.MS. HARF: Uh-huh. Yep.QUESTION: By your statement, do I understand that the United States is recognizing Dr. Abadi as the --MS. HARF: Nominee.QUESTION: -- the nominee, or do you think he is going to be the next prime minister?MS. HARF: Well, he’s the prime – prime minister-designate,
excuse me. There’s a – Prime Minister Maliki is still the prime
minister, as of right now. He is still legally the prime minister. I
know there’s a lot of confusion about this. The President charged the
prime minister nominee to form a new cabinet. The nominee now has 30
days to present a new government and national program to parliament for
approval that will address the needs and aspirations of all of Iraq’s
diverse communities. So there’s still a process here, but this is an
important step in the process, one that we absolutely welcome.QUESTION: So what would hold up Dr. Abadi from becoming the fully recognized prime minister at this point?MS. HARF: Well, he now has 30 days to present a new government. There’s a process, an internal Iraqi process there.QUESTION: Okay. Does the United States believe that the Iraqi
National Alliance has the authority to nominate Dr. Abadi even though
the Dawa party has not?MS. HARF: Well, without going too deep in the weeds of Iraqi constitutional politics --QUESTION: But it’s so fun.MS. HARF: Isn’t it though? We can leave that up to them to
talk about. But in general, look, the Shia bloc nominated Dr. Abadi, a
bloc that includes Prime Minister Maliki’s party. There was overwhelming
support for Dr. Abadi. We think this is part of the process as it has
played out under the constitution. I don’t have any reason to believe
otherwise.QUESTION: Has any senior U.S. official in the last 24 hours spoken to Prime Minister Maliki?MS. HARF: I can check. I don’t know the answer to that.QUESTION: Okay.QUESTION: Vice President Biden.MS. HARF: To Prime Minister Maliki?QUESTION: Yeah.MS. HARF: Okay. I can --QUESTION: Not Maliki. To – sorry.QUESTION: No. I’m asking about Maliki.MS. HARF: Right. She’s asking about Maliki. But thank you for
trying to help me out though. I’ll check on Prime Minister Maliki. I
don’t know the answer to that.QUESTION: Okay. I wonder if there’s any intent to at this point.

MS. HARF: I can check.QUESTION: Okay. Thank you.QUESTION: Marie --QUESTION: Could I just phrase it a different way?MS. HARF: Uh-huh.QUESTION: What do you consider Prime Minister Maliki now? You say he’s still the prime minister, but --MS. HARF: He’s still the prime minister legally under the Iraqi constitution.QUESTION: But do you consider him a lame duck? Do you consider
him on his way out? Do you consider him still a person you would work
with?MS. HARF: Well, certainly we will continue working and
engaging with him given that he’s still the prime minister of Iraq,
absolutely. And Iraq is facing a very dire situation right now. But
we’ve said that in order for Iraq to better confront ISIL going forward,
they need an inclusive government in place as soon as possible. There’s
a process for that government to be in place, and what you saw today
was just another step in that process.QUESTION: Would you say he has a mandate democratically to still make decisions?MS. HARF: Prime Minister Maliki?QUESTION: Maliki.MS. HARF: He’s still the prime minister legally under the constitution.QUESTION: Marie --QUESTION: So Marie --MS. HARF: Yeah, Said, then we’ll go around.QUESTION: Marie, what is happening now? You probably addressed this before I came. I’m sorry I was late.MS. HARF: That’s okay.QUESTION: Now that he’s deploying tanks and security forces and so on, you don’t think that’s in a way some sort of a coup?MS. HARF: Well, how can it be a coup if he’s still the prime minister? That seems a strange word to use.QUESTION: Well, I mean, he’s deploying --MS. HARF: But he’s still the prime minister.QUESTION: He’s still the prime minister but he’s --MS. HARF: So by definition, coup would not be --QUESTION: Yeah, but he’s --QUESTION: He’s protecting against a coup, no?QUESTION: He’s using these forces to consolidate his power and sort of disenfranchise others.MS. HARF: I think that’s making a number of assumptions about
Prime Minister Maliki’s intentions. I don’t want to speak for him. I
would note (a) that there’s a huge security threat right now from ISIL
even in Baghdad, so (a); but (b), look, there’s a process in place here.
Prime Minister Maliki’s party, which is part of this bloc, nominated
someone new to be prime minister.QUESTION: Right.MS. HARF: And it’s the Iraqi people speaking up and choosing
their own future. So let’s – we’re watching the situation on the ground,
but there’s been no, in our view, discernible change in the security
picture in terms of the kind of resources you’re talking about him
deploying.QUESTION: Okay. So are you supporting Haider al-Abadi as a prime minister? Is he someone that is known to you?MS. HARF: Vice President Biden spoke with him today.QUESTION: Right.MS. HARF: Congratulated him on his nomination and called to –
call on him for very quickly, as soon as possible, to form a new
government and develop a national program. The prime minister-designate
expressed his intent to move expeditiously to do so, and the Vice
President and he had a conversation today. Obviously, we support the
process. We have never supported any one person or one party here.QUESTION: Okay. But you know the fact that the Vice President spoke to him, that’s like a ringing endorsement, isn’t it?MS. HARF: Well, it’s not about who we speak to on the phone.
It’s about who the Iraqis choose through their process, which they’ve
done today, to be their next prime minister. That’s how this gets chosen
here.QUESTION: Marie --MS. HARF: Yeah, Arshad, go ahead. And then Michel.QUESTION: It’s real simple. Did the U.S. Government at any
level play any role whatsoever in the selection of Prime
Minister-designate al-Abadi to his current position?MS. HARF: No, this is a decision that has a constitutional process in Iraq, and that is the process that happened here.
Yes.QUESTION: But Prime Minister Maliki has rejected the nomination of Mr. al-Abadi as the prime minister, and some of --MS. HARF: I haven’t actually seen him make public comments today.QUESTION: Some members of his bloc --MS. HARF: Okay. Well, I haven’t seen him --QUESTION: -- made the comments.MS. HARF: Okay.QUESTION: He was standing next to him, though.QUESTION: Exactly.MS. HARF: Okay. Well, he hasn’t, to my knowledge, made
comments today. And again, I’m sure people have a variety of opinions,
but the way their constitutional process works is the bloc puts forward a
candidate, which they did. This bloc, by the way, includes Prime
Minister Maliki’s party, a number of whose members voted for the new
prime minister-designate in this process. So this is how it works. Some
people may not agree with it, but it’s how the process works
constitutionally. That’s what we think is important.QUESTION: And do you expect this rejection will affect the process of the formation of the new government?MS. HARF: No, we think the process should move forward as it’s
laid out in the constitution, as it has until this point. Look, we
never expected this would be easy or without bumps in the road here. We
know this is complicated and we know there are a lot of tensions here
among certain blocs, certain people, certain parties, certain groups. So
we didn’t think it would be easy, but it’s proceeding, actually, along
the path that the constitution sets forward.QUESTION: And the last question for me: Is the U.S. and Iran
or are the U.S. and Iran on the same page regarding the formation of the
new government and the nomination of al-Abadi?MS. HARF: Well, you’d have to ask Iran what their position is.
We have not spoken to them about it, so I don’t know what their
position is on this new decision.QUESTION: Do you --QUESTION: There was a major protest today in Baghdad.
Thousands of people were reportedly attending the protest objecting the
nomination of al-Abadi. They were supporting Prime Minister Maliki. I
would like to ask you a broader question on whether – how democratic do
you think that this is? While many people know that people voted for
Maliki’s coalition mainly because of Maliki, because of him, because he
was --MS. HARF: Well, that’s the way coalition politics works in
this kind of parliamentary system. In the constitutional system the
Iraqis have laid out, you vote for a bloc and the bloc chooses their
prime minister candidate based on their internal voting. So that’s the
way the process works. There’s a reason it’s outlined in the
constitution, and they’ve stuck to that process. So again, there are
still some steps that need to go, but we’ve seen progress today with the
new prime minister-designate.QUESTION: So I just want to understand. You do support President Masum and he has that authority according to the constitution --MS. HARF: That is true, as the guarantor of the constitution.QUESTION: Right, right – to name the prime minister.MS. HARF: Correct.QUESTION: So you support this process?MS. HARF: We support the process.QUESTION: And you don’t agree – you don’t – I mean, the – he picked a candidate for the premiership, correct?MS. HARF: That was put forward by the Shia bloc.QUESTION: Right, that was put forward. So when Maliki claims
that there was a miscarriage of constitutional authority, you disagree
with that notion?MS. HARF: We absolutely disagree with that, yes.QUESTION: All right. Thank you.MS. HARF: Iraq?QUESTION: Should Prime Minister Maliki refuse to accept the
nomination or designation of Mr. Abadi and should try to remain in power
by force, what would the United States reaction to that situation be?MS. HARF: Well, I don’t want to venture a guess on that
hypothetical. I think you’re getting a few steps down the road here. If
that were to come to pass, obviously we could have that conversation
then. But what we’re focused on is the process that’s moving forward,
and that’s what we’ll keep focusing on in the coming days.QUESTION: Isn’t in any way your intervention in Iraq and with
the latest decision that President Obama to launch airstrikes on ISIL to
prevent their advance through the Kurdistan region, didn’t that help in
any way sideline Prime Minister Maliki?MS. HARF: Not at all. It’s totally separate from the --QUESTION: Because politically it showed that America is supporting Kurdistan, kind of.MS. HARF: Well, we did this working very closely with Prime
Minister Maliki and after he had asked for our assistance specifically,
as had a number of other leaders. So this is a totally separate process
from the political process that’s been going on, and we have been
working with Prime Minister Maliki to determine more ways that we could
help here.QUESTION: But what can – what one in Iraq could also think
that with the United States full support to the Kurdistan Regional
Government and its intervention to stop the advance of ISIS, while it
kind of remained virtually silent about its advances in other parts of
Iraq --MS. HARF: That’s absolutely incorrect that we remain virtually silent.QUESTION: Action-wise. Actions --MS. HARF: Well, actually, we took a number of actions,
particularly several months ago. We opened joint operations centers,
intelligence-sharing centers in Baghdad and in Erbil, so in both places,
so we could share increasing information with the Iraqi security
forces, particularly. We also increased our surveillance and
reconnaissance coverage over Iraq – again, to share intelligence with
the Iraqi security forces.

QUESTION: But can --MS. HARF: So this is not just about Erbil. Obviously, there
was a discrete, limited objective here, particularly with our consulate
and ISIL’s rapid advance towards Erbil. But we have been working for
months now with the Iraqis from all different parts of Iraq to fight
this threat together. This is not just limited to Erbil.QUESTION: But we can say that you were increasingly frustrated with Maliki and then these actions also show that, right?MS. HARF: I don’t think so. These actions in Erbil, around
Erbil, and with Mount Sinjar were based solely on how we could bring
capabilities, unique capabilities, to bear in terms of the humanitarian
situation and also the security situation. They’re divorced from that.
Yep, Said.QUESTION: Quick question: Did you address the issue of arming the Peshmerga?MS. HARF: We have not talked about that yet.QUESTION: Okay. The United States decided to directly arm the
Peshmerga. How does that work in terms of arming the central army or the
central government?MS. HARF: Well, I think there’s been a little bit of, sort of,
I should say breathless reporting on this, so let’s just talk through
this a little bit. The Government of Iraq has made deliveries from its
own stocks to the Kurds, and we are working to do the same in
coordination with all the relevant parties. We said this last week. I
said it from the podium. I think Ben Rhodes and others said it on TV.
ISIL’s obtained some heavy weaponry; the Kurds need additional arms. We
are providing those and working to provide additional. Obviously, we’re –
all of this is done in coordination with the central Government of
Iraq.
And look, I think another key point here, Said, is that we’ve seen a
really unprecedented level of cooperation between the Iraqi security
forces and the Peshmerga and the Kurds that we really hadn’t seen
before, including the ISF providing, I think, air support and ammo to
the Kurds. So it’s really a team effort here. We’re all helping out.
We’re seeing what more ways we could expedite their request.QUESTION: Would you still arm the Peshmerga if Baghdad refused to cooperate, to agree to that --MS. HARF: I’m not going to venture to guess on hypotheticals here.QUESTION: A similar question: Did you get the explicit consent
of the Iraqi Government in Baghdad for you to provide arms directly to
the Peshmerga?MS. HARF: Everything we’re doing we’re working very closely with the central Government in Iraq, yes.QUESTION: But that – so yes is the answer? You did get their --MS. HARF: Arshad, everything we are doing is in close coordination with the Iraqi Government.QUESTION: But actually --QUESTION: Can we clarify that?QUESTION: Why can’t you just --QUESTION: Right, yes. Can you just clarify that? I mean, did
you just say that the U.S. is directly arming the Peshmerga or the
Kurdish forces with the consent of the Government in Baghdad?MS. HARF: I said what – what I said, I can repeat it again: We
are working with the Government of Iraq to accelerate deliveries of
badly needed arms to Kurdish forces in the north. The GOI has made
deliveries from its own stocks, and we are working to do the same,
deliveries from our own stocks, in coordination with all the relevant
parties.QUESTION: But your own stocks --MS. HARF: So that conversation is ongoing. We’re not going to
detail every single way we provide support, as we don’t many places, but
in general we are working together to provide the Kurds with arms.QUESTION: Okay.MS. HARF: This isn’t anything new. We talked about this last week.QUESTION: The Kurdish Government --QUESTION: (Inaudible) consent?QUESTION: The Kurdish Government is saying --MS. HARF: Yes.QUESTION: -- that it’s directly receiving arms from the United States.MS. HARF: And I just said we are actively working to do that.
But just because we can talk directly to the Kurds or work directly with
them doesn’t mean it’s all not in coordination with the Government of
Iraq.QUESTION: Could you --QUESTION: But there’s a difference between asking – or letting
the Baghdad – the government in Baghdad know that this happening and
actually funneling the arms and the ammo through the government in
Baghdad and letting them do the delivery. So which is it?MS. HARF: Again, we’re not going to detail specifically how
all of this takes place. We’re just not going to do that from the
podium. We are having ongoing conversations with all of the parties
about how we can all get arms to the Kurds as quickly as possible.QUESTION: Who’s supplying, the Pentagon?QUESTION: But do you – wait a second.QUESTION: Sorry.QUESTION: But do you have the Iraqi Government’s consent for you to directly arm the Kurds?MS. HARF: As I said, we are working with the Government of Iraq very closely on all – I’m not going to detail everything for you.QUESTION: You can’t say whether you have their consent, which I find very odd, given that you’re --MS. HARF: I find it’s an odd question that you keep asking when I said I’m not going to detail all the specifics here.QUESTION: Yeah, but --MS. HARF: But we are working very closely with them and we are all doing this in coordination with each other.QUESTION: This is not a highly specific question, and it’s a
relevant question because your guidance, including from the podium up
until, I think, last Wednesday was that you don’t do any arming of the
Kurds without doing it with the consent of the Iraqi Government.MS. HARF: I would go back and look at what I said from the
podium over the past few weeks, Arshad, before you make those
generalizations. As I said, this is being done in full coordination and
cooperation with the Iraqi Government.QUESTION: Who’s supplying the arms? I mean, the Pentagon or --MS. HARF: I don’t have more details for you than that, Said.
We’re always not going to outline where those – where that – how that
happens.QUESTION: Is it possible that it is being supplied by the CIA?MS. HARF: I just said I’m not going to detail any of that for you, Said.QUESTION: Let me ask – not in a different way, but a slightly
different question that gets at the same issue. Assuming that there is
U.S. aid going to the Kurds, whether it’s directly --MS. HARF: Which I talked about last week very openly, as did others as well.QUESTION: Fine. How long might we expect this to endure? Is
this as long as ISIS is a threat? As the President said, this could take
not weeks but months. Or is this just for a finite limited period of
time with a finite limited amount of arms?MS. HARF: It’s an ongoing conversation about what the needs are.QUESTION: Could you bring us up to date on the status of the U.S. citizens and diplomatic personnel in Erbil and --MS. HARF: Yes.QUESTION: -- in Baghdad? Have more of them left?MS. HARF: Uh-huh. Yeah, it’s a good question. So over the
weekend – look, basically what we’re doing is looking at our needs at
all of our different locations in Iraq, so at Erbil, Basra, and Baghdad.
We did – so basically what we’re doing is adjusting staffing where it’s
needed. So we did move some folks out of Erbil, but we also deployed
additional folks to Erbil as well.
So over the weekend, USAID deployed a disaster assistance response
team to Iraq, which will be based out of Erbil, to work closely with
local officials, the international community, and humanitarian relief
agencies to identify needs and expedite lifesaving assistance to those
caught in the middle of the violence. So we have – we’ve adjusted our
staffing, so some people have gone to Baghdad or Basra and we’ve put
some more people in Erbil. So we’ll constantly look at what the needs
are, but we believe it’s very important to keep them all open.QUESTION: But everyone there is considered essential personnel? It’s not the kind of thing that you would evacuate nonessentials?MS. HARF: Well, that’s not – yeah, I mean, that’s not exactly a
term that we tend to use from here. We – there’s no plans to change
staffing at this point. We believe it’s important to have it open and
running and helping with the Iraqis in this fight. So we’ll keep
adjusting staffing as needed, but that’s a little different.QUESTION: The Kurdish Government tried to order ammo and guns
from a U.S. manufacturer last month, but it was allegedly blocked by the
State Department. Now there seems to be a switch in U.S. policy towards
this.MS. HARF: I’m not familiar with that. I’m happy to check on it, but I’m not familiar with that.QUESTION: Okay.QUESTION: Given that your position has consistently been that
you support the integrity and the territorial sovereignty of a unified
Iraq, are you concerned about sending mixed messages by directly
funneling arms to a region of that country?MS. HARF: Well, look, as I said, all of this is done in
coordination with the central Government of Iraq. So we’re all – it
really is a team effort here. The Government of Iraq has already
provided the Kurdish Peshmerga with some weapons from its existing
stockpiles. We are actively trying to do the same thing.QUESTION: Still, it’s --MS. HARF: So that’s what we’re talking about. But it’s – the
Government of Iraq’s doing it. We are helping them as well. We know
there’s an urgent need here. And again, this isn’t news. We’ve talked
for a long time about the fact that we have been working with the Kurds,
working with the Peshmerga in this fight. This is not in any way new.QUESTION: Why don’t you leave the Iraqi Government to provide these arms to the Kurds?MS. HARF: Well, we have some unique capabilities that we can
bring to bear in this fight against ISIL, and we – when we can provide
those, we believe it’s important to do so.QUESTION: What capabilities are being provided, then? I mean,
aside from airstrikes and some of that, what we’ve been told is it’s
mostly small arms and ammunition. So this seems to be capabilities that
could be delivered by Baghdad or even other places.MS. HARF: Well, I would refer you to the Defense Department, I
think, probably for specifics on kinds of weapons that we provide to
our partners. But we’ve also provided intelligence – as I talked about,
surveillance and reconnaissance – to our – all of our partners in Iraq
through the joint operation centers in Baghdad and Erbil. That’s
actually been a very key part of trying to fight ISIL. But again, I
don’t have any more specifics to share with you than that.QUESTION: But they also are receiving some armored personnel carriers from Pakistan. Are you aware of that?MS. HARF: I don’t have any more details to share with you guys on this.QUESTION: President Barzani wrote an op-ed in The Washington
Post yesterday saying that he has received no bullet from Baghdad. Is
that – like, the fact that you are trying to arm them directly, is that a
recognition that Baghdad has acted in a sectarian manner --MS. HARF: As I just said --QUESTION: -- refusing to provide arms?MS. HARF: -- the Government of Iraq has provided the Kurds weapons from their existing stockpiles already.QUESTION: They just did it when the ISIS tried to attack Kurdistan, but they had not provided a single bullet, as Barzani said.

MS. HARF: Well, they have – so let’s focus on what’s happened
recently, and we have noted that there’s been a lot of cooperation
between the Iraqi security forces and the Kurds recently, which we think
is a very good thing. It’s all underneath sort of everyone trying to
fight this threat together. Again, we’ve said for many, many months now
that we’ll work with the Kurds. We said that we’re looking at a variety
of ways to do so. So I know there’s, again, a lot of rumors out there
about this, but we’ve made very clear that if we can help, we will. We
know that we want to expedite requests here. Again, we’re trying to make
weapons available through our existing stockpiles, which, obviously,
would come out of Defense Department stockpiles. And that’s kind of the
story here. So I’m a little bit perplexed by some of the coverage, but
that would not be the first time.

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